Lifeways raising money to keep students off drugs and alcohol

Their goal is to keep students in Rapid City Schools drug and alcohol free.Lifeways has been working to do that here since 2003.

But it's an expensive proposition and Tuesday morning, they were trying to raise money for the task with a breakfast at the Civic Center.

Lifeways executive director Paula Wilkinson Smith says their federal grants will be disappearing in two years.She says the statistics we see for drug and alcohol abuse in youth here mirror what you see around the rest of the country.She says it's critical to get education and intervention as early as possible.

Wilkinson Smith says, "A lot of those kids say they use alcohol and drugs to help them cope with life, to help them cope with stress, problems in their family, problems they have in relationships, just overall stress in their lives. so we work with kids to help give them education to learn healthy ways to cope."

Lifeways says they impact over 4,000 students every year with nine professional drug and alcohol counselors.